Novels by StaryUll

The purple light was blinding, hot, and promised the end of all the pain crushing him.Elios shut his eyes tightly. He could feel the Chaos energy gathering in Lyra’s palm, his wife, his queen, and now his executioner. The power was ready to erase his existence down to the last atom.He was not afraid of dying.He was simply tired. Very tired.Sleep well, my love, Elios whispered silently to himself.But the death he had been waiting for never came.Another apocalypse arrived first.GGRRRRRRR-BOOOOOM!It was not the explosion from Lyra’s hand. The thunderous roar came from below, from the deepest belly of the earth. The sabotage Elios had planted in the main reactor twenty minutes earlier had finally reached its climax.The reactor core, stripped of its cooling system, did not merely melt down. It detonated violently, triggering a chain reaction that shattered the tectonic foundation beneath Facility Zero.The floor of the frozen crater split apart with a deafening crack.KRAAAK!The

Thick purple smoke shrouded the Ice Crater, swirling like a nebula storm in a vacuum.Lyra’s colossal body, which had filled the horizon moments ago, was shrinking at an unnatural speed. Flesh, bone, and muscle compressed inward with a series of wet, sickening cracks, the sound of biological matter being forcibly reshaped.Elios lost his footing. The giant’s back he had been standing on vanished beneath him.He fell.But he did not plunge into the abyss.The gravitational field around Lyra was still unstable from the removal of the Holy Iron Stake. Fragments of the platform, slabs of ice, and Elios himself floated in the air, suspended in weightless stasis.At the center of the vortex of dust and energy, a new figure took shape.No longer twenty meters tall. Now human in scale.A woman hovered before Elios.Her skin was pale gray, hard as marble yet smooth as silk.A pair of jet-black wings, now proportionate to her body, spread wide behind her, beating slowly to hold her position in

Thud. Landing on the back of a giant demon felt exactly like hitting asphalt coated in dry ice. Hard, freezing, and searing against the skin. Elios slammed onto Lyra’s left shoulder. His metal-plated hand grabbed whatever it could find, in this case a thick clump of black hair sprouting from the pale flesh of the Queen. “Ugh.” Vera landed beside him, skidding across the slick, mucus-slick surface of her skin. “Hold on, Vera! Don’t fall!” Elios shouted, catching Vera’s ankle with his still weakened left hand. Feeling parasites clinging to her body, Lyra roared in fury. She shook herself in violent spasms. It was like riding a wild horse during a magnitude nine earthquake. “GET… OFF… ME… LICE!” The Legion’s voice detonated inside their skulls, blurring Elios’s vision. “Sorry, honey! I’m not really in the mood for social distancing!” Elios shot back, his teeth rattling from the tremors. Above them, the three Church gunships that had been spewing lethal firepower suddenly ceased

Falling felt like being pulled back into the cold womb of the earth.There was no scream. The wind roared too violently in Elios’s ears, stealing his voice. Shards of glass and steel from the shattered observation balcony fell with him like an artificial meteor shower.Below, the darkness of the icy crater yawned open. At its center, Lyra’s colossal form glowed violet, waiting for her prey to fall within reach.Elios saw Vera three meters beneath him, her body spinning uncontrollably in midair.“Vera!” Elios screamed in his mind.His human left hand was useless. His right was metal.He did the only thing that metal hand could do.Mid-fall, Elios reached behind his belt and yanked free the portable grappling hook launcher he had taken from the corpse of a Paladin at the docks.He aimed. Not at the distant ice wall, but at one of the massive golden chains still restraining Lyra’s body, a chain stretching horizonta

A high pitched ringing filled Elios’s ears, drowning out the facility alarms still wailing in the distance.“…lios! Elios! Wake up!”The voice sounded as if it were coming from underwater. Hands were shaking his shoulder in panic.Elios’s eyes snapped open. He dragged in a sharp breath as if surfacing from the depths of the ocean. Cold air mixed with concrete dust stabbed into his lungs.The first thing he saw was Vera’s face.The female agent was kneeling beside him. White dust coated her features, dried blood clung to the corner of her mouth, and her right shoulder, where Elios had shot her, was wrapped in a hastily applied bandage already blooming red.“I’m… I’m still alive?” Elios croaked. He tried to sit up, but the world spun violently.“You were thrown five meters. Your head hit the wall. Mild concussion,” Vera reported, her voice trembling between relief and pain as she helped him upright. “If you had not woken u

ZWUUUUM!A violet plasma sphere the size of a basketball blasted from Inquisitor Draven’s arm cannon. The heat was so intense that the air around it warped like asphalt at high noon.Elios threw himself sideways, diving behind a concrete lab table.KABOOM!The concrete table disintegrated into dust. The shockwave scorched his back.“Are you insane? You brought a tank cannon into a room?” Elios shouted, rolling to his feet and firing back with the HK .45.BANG! BANG! BANG!The bullets struck Draven’s mechanical chest.TING! TING! TING!No effect. The lead rounds bounced off Draven’s Adamantium armor, leaving only faint, pathetic scratches. Draven did not even bother to dodge. He advanced on clanging mechanical spider legs, metal striking the floor with heavy, echoing steps, dominating the room like a walking tank.“Primitive,” Draven mocked, his voice layered with thick electronic distortion. “Y

“Smells like a demon’s stomach having a severe ulcer,” Claire muttered, fighting the urge to vomit behind her gas mask. The three of them sprinted across a rusted iron bridge hanging high above a vast lake of neon green liquid. Below, corrosive acid boiled violently. Giant bubbles rose to the surface, bursting and spraying toxic steam in every direction. PSSSHHH! A splash of acid struck the side of Throg’s boots. White smoke instantly billowed upward. The leather melted within seconds, nearly reaching his toes. “Hot! Hot!” Throg hopped in pain, nearly slipping into the deadly acid lake below. “Don’t stop, idiot!” Oliver shouted from the front. He ran while clutching his stomach, which throbbed with pain. The side effects from the data overload in the previous round were still tormenting him. In the center of the roiling acid lake stood Gluttony, Sin Number Five, in its true form. It was no longer the obese man who had lounged comfortably in the VIP stands. Now it had tra

The blinding white light slowly faded, replaced by the warm glow of crystal chandeliers. Soft instrumental jazz drifted through the air, a mellow saxophone replacing the screams of death and the roaring chainsaws of the Minotaur that had filled their ears moments earlier. Oliver opened his eyes slowly. For a brief second he wondered if he had died and entered heaven, or at least the version of heaven reserved for the wealthy. But as his gaze moved around the room, he quickly realized this was not a peaceful afterlife. This was the Rest Area. The room was enormous, designed like the lobby of a five-star hotel in Dubai. The floor was covered in thick red carpet that swallowed every footstep. The walls were paneled with expensive mahogany and decorated with enchanted paintings that moved slowly within their frames. At the far end of the room stood a long bar staffed by an octopus bartender mixing ten d

The exit gate stood directly in front of them now. The brilliant white light pouring from it promised safety, rest, and perhaps a desperately needed glass of cold water. But between Oliver and that small slice of heaven stood five figures blocking the path with arrogant confidence. Dark Elves. They were not the friendly woodland Elves of fairy tales. They were mercenary killers from the Underdark. Their skin was gray, their hair stark white, and their purple eyes glowed faintly in the dim light. Their armor was crafted from black Drake leather that absorbed light almost unnaturally. Their weapons were ready and deadly. Composite bows, paired poison daggers, and short swords that looked razor sharp. Their leader, a tall male with a serpent tattoo coiled around his neck, stepped forward. He flipped a dagger in his hand with such speed that the motion blurred. "Stop there, hu

"Don't... Touch... Anything!" Oliver's voice cut through the narrow corridor, sharp and deliberate. The sound echoed off the walls that were... blinding. They were now deep inside The Maze of Avarice, and the name was not metaphorical decoration. The labyrinth walls were not made of brick or concrete. They were formed from compressed treasure fused together by high-level gravity magic. Ancient gold coins, crowns of long-dead kings, jeweled goblets, diamond necklaces, all melded into towering walls twenty meters high. The floor consisted of black marble tiles interlaid with bars of pure gold. The lighting here felt unnatural. There were no lamps, yet the gold itself glowed faintly, casting a dull yellow illumination that hurt the eyes while quietly stirring greed inside the heart. "Boss..." Griz the Goblin Accountant spoke with a strained voice. His breathing sounded like an asthmatic wheeze. "Boss... you see that? That's the Crown of King S

The purple light from the portal slowly faded, swallowed by the darkness of the dimension before it was suddenly replaced by the glare of stage lights, thousands of watts blasting straight into Oliver’s eyes. He closed them for a moment, letting his body adjust to the drastic shift in atmospheric pressure. The first thing that greeted him was not fresh air. It was sound. ROAAARRRR! The noise was not the scream of a single monster. It was the combined roar of millions of throats, Orcs, Goblins, Vampires, Banshees, even high-class Demons, all shouting at once. The wave of sound felt like a physical blow that pressed against his chest and made his heart skip a beat. “Damn…” Griz cursed, covering his long green ears. “I thought the Death Metal concerts in the slave barracks were loud. This… this is insane, Boss!” Oliver slowly opened his eyes, squinting against the blinding arena lights. They were standing on a floating platform made of black stone, suspended m

"Hold your breath, Boss. This is going to hurt. Worse than losing a finger." Griz, the Goblin accountant who was doubling as an improvised mechanic, tightened the final screw on Oliver's left arm. They were inside the secret workshop behind The Kennel. The air smelled like enchanted oil and burnt flesh. Oliver sat in an operating chair with his shirt sleeve rolled up to the elbow. On his left hand, the one missing the ring finger, a device was now attached. It was not an ordinary prosthetic. It was a Concealed Mechanical Gauntlet. Forged from dark Mithril metal, light yet harder than steel, the device wrapped around Oliver's forearm from wrist to elbow. Fine needles pierced the skin, linking the gauntlet directly to his nerves. "Activate it," Oliver ordered. Cold sweat ran down his temple. Griz pressed the activation switch. ZZZT! A surge of magical electricity shot through Oliver's nerves. "ARGH!" Oliver groaned, teeth grinding together. The fi